what makes Jon Jones the greatest of all time is it steroids it's Jon Jones uh tested positive for Tarina ball illegal techniques I do put people in the eyes and it's very illegal uh but I do or something else we really do paint our world with our thoughts and our level of self-belief to find out we must go back in time December 30th 2016 UFC 207 Cody garbrandt versus Dominic Cruz Cody garbratt put on the greatest performance of his career against Cruz to win the bantamweight title after the fight he talked about how he was in Flow State and instinctively knew what to do at every moment I have experience at Flow State but never on that highest stage or on that level yeah of in depth with my body and you know and just seeing everything I could see every punch however he never recreated that magic and lost his title shortly after it's because he never learned how to enter the Flow State on command Jon Jones however learned how to do it a long time ago also called being in the zone during this Flow State we are operating on a subconscious level and fully immersed in what we're doing for flow to occur the challenge must be at the edge of our skill level if it's too easy we get bored if it's too difficult we get anxious if it's making us stretch flow has the possibility to occur the reason I bring this up is because of why Jon Jones moved from the light heavyweight division to the heavyweight division the fear was gone I didn't really I didn't really fear these guys I just wanted more I wanted I wanted to be nervous again I wanted I wanted to have fear again I think fear is healthy Jones was in this Zone down here and experiencing boredom after dominating Legends like Shogun Machida and DC his later opponents did not present the same level of challenge skill wise so to bring himself back to flow he decided to raise the challenge and move up to heavyweight to fight Stipe and ganu or gone now a more difficult challenge doesn't guarantee reaching the Flow State the challenge being at the edge of our skill level is only one part of the equation however Jon Jones knows the whole equation at after being presented with a challenge at the edge of our skill level there are triggers we can use to ensure we enter the Flow State the first trigger Jones uses is anchoring anchoring is associating an internal feeling with an external trigger Jon Jones has Associated the feeling of flow with spinning in circles with his arms outstretched he has done this his entire career this is 10 years ago this is five years ago and this is his last fight with enough practice through anchoring you can train your mind to associate any desired feeling with a specific external trigger Jon Jones uses this external trigger to enter flow on command next Jon Jones channels his anxiety into excitement being nervous is important you know that it's a quote that I love I see it all the time you know there's nothing wrong with having butterflies as long as you can get them to fly information physiologically anxiety and excitement are the exact same what makes us feel anxiety or excitement is solely based on how we feel about it Jon Jones understands this and convinces himself during the walkout that he is feeling excitement because anxiety prevents flow from happening when he's walking out in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans there's a flood of emotions adrenaline and nerves Jon Jones gets his butterflies in formation by telling himself positive affirmations at this moment to channel this energy into excitement and not anxiety [Music] oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah and the last thing Jon Jones does to enter the flow state is stay as present as possible and I'm just going to be embracing the moment you know whether people are booing or cheering I know that a lot of people are here to see me and um I'm just gonna live in my moment living my destiny and just uh try to just soak as much in and enjoy as much of it as I can being truly in the moment focusing on the here and now that is the only way to enter flow if you're worried about what could happen or thinking about what has happened it's impossible to be at your best right now John stays in the Moment by engaging his senses and constantly bringing himself back to Center even mid-fight when he sits on his stool he centers himself in the present moments what I try to do is try to close my eyes and I focus on the water I focus on there are focus on the Beauty and the fresh air between thinking about all these beautiful thoughts I find myself the cover this Focus brings him back to the moment it ensures that if he has slipped out of the Flow State he can get right back into it and fight at his best most creative self it has been found that flow increases creativity by 400 to 700 percent which explains why Jon Jones does Jon Jones things he is the president and he is the future and he might be the greatest talent that we've ever seen in the UFC and the last thing Jon Jones does to get into the flow state is pattern recognition Jones is obsessed with studying other Fighters Tendencies and weaknesses I study everybody extensively and then I come up with their patterns I figure out the way they Flinch I figure out their first favorite punch their second favorite punch their their favorite combinations their setups to their takedowns when they clinch what side of the head's going to be literally everything I know everything about every opponent he studies them and visualizes fighting them hundreds if not thousands of times I became obsessed with the power of the Mind meditation visualization and just realizing how powerful our minds actually are during these visualizations he programs how he will capitalize on their weaknesses over and over again the brain cannot tell the difference of visualization from reality so these neural pathways are strengthened with each repetition so when the moment comes and the opportunity presents itself pattern recognition kicks in and he capitalizes instantly the most obvious example of this was his most recent fight with on God has a tendency from Southpaw to overthrow his left straight here you can see him overthrow it ingano didn't capitalize the next time he throws it you can see him overthrow it again this time inganu tries to throw a hook off the break Jon Jones saw this and visualized what he would do a thousand times which is slipped to the outside clinch and use this opportunity to take gun down which is why when the moment came in the fight it was instinctive from Jon all right immediately that is absolutely huge the next weakness Jones song Gone is that when he's taken down he often tries to wrestle up while leaving his neck exposed you can see here gone's neck is exposed but in ganu is not confident in his submission game and doesn't go for the guillotine Jon Jones saw this and undoubtedly visualized cranking a guillotine over and over and over which is why when God did exactly that [Applause] the prefrontal cortex of our brain is responsible for thinking and decision making in flow there's less activity in this area and we act from our subconscious without thinking to us the fight looked unbelievably easy for Jones but it's because he programmed his subconscious with the instructions many times and in the Flow State it simply acted on the instructions instantaneously when the opportunities presented themselves Jon Jones is undoubtedly A Gifted athlete who works very hard but his true genius which is often overlooked is his understanding of the Mind hey thank you for checking out the video if you made it all the way to the end please leave a bones Emoji down below so I know who watches all the way through and if you want to learn more about how Elite Fighters think check out this video here